The Independent (UK)
Marcg 16, 2003
The War of Misinformation Has Begun
By Robert Fisk
All across the Middle East, they are deploying by the thousand. In the
deserts of Kuwait, in Amman, in northern Iraq, in Turkey, in Israel and
in Baghdad itself. There must be 7,000 journalists and crews
"in theatre", as the more jingoistic of them like to say. In Qatar, a
massive press centre has been erected for journalists who will not see
the war. How many times General Tommy Franks will spin his story to the
press at the nine o'clock follies, no one knows. He doesn't even like
talking to journalists.
But the journalistic resources being laid down in the region are
enormous. The BBC alone has 35 reporters in the Middle East, 17 of them
"embedded" - along with hundreds of reporters from the American
networks and other channels - in military units. Once the
invasion starts, they will lose their freedom to write what they want.
There will be censorship. And, I'll hazard a guess right now, we shall
see many of the British and American journalists back to their old
trick of playing toy soldiers, dressing themselves up in
military costumes for their nightly theatrical performances
on television. Incredibly, several of the American networks have set up
shop in the Kurdish north of Iraq with orders not to file a single
story until war begins - in case this provokes the Iraqis to expel
their network reporters from Baghdad.
The orchestration will be everything, the pictures often posed, the
angles chosen by "minders", much as the Iraqis will try to do the same
thing in Baghdad. Take yesterday's front-page pictures of massed
British troops in Kuwait, complete with arranged tanks and perfectly
formatted helicopters. This was the perfectly planned photo-op. Of
course, it won't last.
Here's a few guesses about our coverage of the war to come. American
and British forces use thousands of depleted uranium (DU) shells -
widely regarded by 1991 veterans as the cause of Gulf War syndrome as
well as thousands of child cancers in present day Iraq - to batter
their way across the Kuwaiti-Iraqi frontier. Within hours, they will
enter the city of Basra, to be greeted by its Shia Muslim inhabitants
as liberators. US and British troops will be given roses and
pelted with rice - a traditional Arab greeting - as they
drive "victoriously" through the streets. The first news pictures of
the war will warm the hearts of Messrs Bush and Blair. There will be
virtually no mention by reporters of the use of DU munitions. But in
Baghdad, reporters will be covering the bombing raids that are killing
civilians by the score and then by the hundred. These journalists, as
usual, will be accused of giving "comfort to the enemy while British
troops are fighting for their lives". By now, in Basra and
other "liberated" cities south of the capital, Iraqis are taking their
fearful revenge on Saddam Hussein's Baath party officials. Men are
hanged from lamp-posts. Much television footage of these scenes will
have to be cut to sanitise the extent of the violence.
Far better for the US and British governments will be the macabre
discovery of torture chambers and "rape- rooms" and prisoners with
personal accounts of the most terrible suffering at the hands of
Saddam's secret police. This will "prove" how right "we" are
to liberate these poor people. Then the US will have to find the
"weapons of mass destruction" that supposedly provoked this bloody war.
In the journalistic hunt for these weapons, any old rocket will do for
the moment. Bunkers allegedly containing chemical weapons will
be cordoned off - too dangerous for any journalist to approach, of
course. Perhaps they actually do contain VX or anthrax. But for the
moment, the all-important thing for Washington and London is to
convince the world that the casus belli was true - and reporters, in or
out of military costume, will be on hand to say just that.
Baghdad is surrounded and its defenders ordered to surrender. There
will be fighting between Shias and Sunnis around the slums of the city,
the beginning of a ferocious civil conflict for which the invading
armies are totally unprepared. US forces will sweep past Baghdad to his
home city of Tikrit in their hunt for Saddam Hussein. Bush and Blair
will appear on television to speak of their great "victories". But
as they are boasting, the real story will begin to be told: the break-
up of Iraqi society, the return of thousands of Basra refugees from
Iran, many of them with guns, all refusing to live under
western occupation.
In the north, Kurdish guerrillas will try to enter Kirkuk, where they
will kill or "ethnically cleanse" many of the city's Arab inhabitants.
Across Iraq, the invading armies will witness terrible scenes of
revenge which can no longer be kept off television screens.
The collapse of the Iraqi nation is now under way ...
Of course, the Americans and British just might get into Baghdad in
three days for their roses and rice water. That's what the British did
in 1917. And from there, it was all downhill.
Weasel words to watch for
'Inevitable revenge' - for the executions of Saddam's
Baath party officials which no one actually said were
inevitable.
'Stubborn' or 'suicidal' - to be used when Iraqi forces
fight rather than retreat.
'Allegedly' - for all carnage caused by Western forces.
'At last, the damning evidence' - used when reporters
enter old torture chambers.
'Officials here are not giving us much access' - a
clear sign that reporters in Baghdad are confined to
their hotels. ' Life goes on' - for any pictures of
Iraq's poor making tea.
'Remnants' - allegedly 'diehard' Iraqi troops still
shooting at the Americans but actually the first signs
of a resistance movement dedicated to the 'liberation'
of Iraq from its new western occupiers.
'Newly liberated' - for territory and cities newly
occupied by the Americans or British.
'What went wrong?' - to accompany pictures illustrating
the growing anarchy in Iraq as if it were not
predicted.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=387592